Physical ageing of polypropylene in glassy state

Abstract

Physical ageing behaviour of a semicrystalline polymer, polypropylene, has been studied at a pressure-temperature state (P=2.5 kbar,T=15° C) for which the amorphous region is in the glassy state. Polypropylene contains 57% crystallinity and its glass transition temperature at atmospheric condition is −20° C. The ageing behaviour was monitored by measuring the Young's modulus (E) from the stress-strain curves as a function of ageing time up to 200 h. The Young's modulus of the rapidly pressure quenched samples increased at 0.4% per ageing hour of the initial value for up to 30 h and tapered off thereafter. The glassy polypropylene also exhibited a memory behaviour when it was given a pressure perturbation.